Thursday, 16 July 2015

Dram and Brew - London Beer City Event

For those that know me, if I am not drinking beer, I am partial to a dram of whisky. So it makes perfect sense that one day I decided to treat myself to both, a little while before everyone jumped on the bandwagon of beer and a 'bump' or beer and boiler makers. Together with my fellow colleagues and beer friends, we would often be at a bar with the two drinks sat side by side, well-matched and we wouldn't have it any other way.

What's to love of this combo then? Well, both beer and whisky are made from malt; one brewed and the other distilled. Since they share a common ingredient, they can quite easily share similar flavour profiles attributed by the malt: bread-y, spicy, biscuit-y, roasted, caramel...etc. If you contemplate the other flavours used to describe beers: fruity, phenolic, floral, grassy and so on, you can appreciate similar descriptors can also be applied and are sensor-ally used for mapping the flavour profile of whisky. What all this boils down to is that there is plenty to work with when it comes to pairing the two. Then there is a whole host of history and tradition which beer and whisky share, but most important is the fact that they are both (awesome) social lubricants.

With this being the basis of why I love the two together, I thought for London Beer City to share the enjoyment of beer and whisky with others. Pairing up with Greg from Great Drams who in 2014 paid us here at Weird Beard a wonderful visit, means together we have an exciting, pulling-all-the-stops-out line up for our event. What we have to offer showcases some all-time favourite, some special and some new Weird Beard beers carefully matched with whiskies. We've got a mix of Bourbon and Scotch Malt whiskies for our selection of beers, which range from IPA to stouts to certainly satisfy all palates. Our set of beer and whisk(e)y pairings have been expertly curated and we trust our guided tasting of these two beverages will be a fantastic sensorial experience. After the 1.5 hour tasting, there will be the opportunity to purchase more whisk(e)y or beer for drinking in as well as sales of beer for take-away.